


A Well Dressed Man('s Man)

by softestlad



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: 5+1 Things, Affair Era Aaron Dingle/Robert Sugden, Boyfriends era, Dirty Talk, Domestic Fluff, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Home Farm, Innuendo, Insecurity, M/M, Painting, Sharing Clothes, Smut, Tie Kink, husband socks, husbands era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 07:44:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20849945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestlad/pseuds/softestlad
Summary: 5 times Aaron wore something of Robert's, +1 time Robert wore something of his.





	A Well Dressed Man('s Man)

**AFFAIR ERA: COAT**

Aaron knew he was rough but even he wouldn’t dare mention all the places the barn straw had ended up in front of polite company. Or Robert, as it was. They were still panting, Robert having only just rolled off of him, both lying flat on their backs and pouring hot breaths into the cold air in puffing clouds. Their arms touched in a long line, and if Aaron was braver – or more stupid – he’d tangle their fingers together. Considering what they’d just been doing it could hardly be considered scandalous, but somehow he got the feeling that holding Robert’s hand in the afterglow wouldn’t go over as well as groping at Robert’s back while he fucked him among the hay bales.

“You alright?” Robert asked. Aaron didn’t need to look to see the smug smile, he could hear it clear as day, all the more galling for the fact that Aaron couldn’t deny Robert had plenty to be smug about. Aaron wouldn’t drop his trousers in a vaguely whiffy old barn for just anyone.

“Yeah, you?”

“I’ll manage,” Robert said. Aaron rolled his eyes. Git.

A cold bluster of wind snuck in the barn door like an uninvited guest, and a shudder rippled through Aaron as his skin prickled with goosebumps.

“Cold?” Robert nudged his arm against Aaron’s.

Aaron scoffed, lifting his forearm so it was directly in Robert’s eyeline.

“Nah, mate, all the hair on my arms just wanted a proper look round.”

“Alright, narky.” Robert caught Aaron’s wrist, brushing his fingers. He flinched. “Oh, you really are.” Robert sat up and Aaron watched him, quietly confused, as he glanced in their immediate radius before reaching out to grab –

“Here have this.” Robert passed him the bundled up coat.

“That’s your one,” Aaron said, carefully.

Robert raised his eyes to the barn ceiling and heaved out a playful sigh. “I had figured that out, even without having my name labelled at the collar – “

“That was one shirt, Robert, years old that I used for PE.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just – “ Robert gestured with the coat. Aaron took it, shrugging into the sleeves. It was overlong in the arm for him, but that was how he preferred to wear things anyway.

“Cheers,” he said, settling himself in the insulating fabric. They’d have to get up and get dressed properly soon, but for now this was… nice. “Proper arctic in here, I was freezing me balls off.”

“Can’t have that now, can we,” Robert smirked. Aaron laughed, warmed by his own blush and the glowing, honest smile Robert gave him in response. Just for a second. Aaron pulled the coat tighter around himself, couldn’t figure a way to breathe in the scent of it without being caught out, so resisted.

“No,” he said, pulling the sleeves down over his hands, “suppose we can’t.”

**AFFAIR ERA IN LOVE: SOCKS**

Robert tasted like chocolate, Easter monster that he was. It was cute. Aaron was finding things cute about him now, and if he didn’t know he was in trouble before, that would’ve clinched it. The couch was trying to devour him, so he fed it his worries, relaxed into the plush, rich furnishings of Home Farm.

It was funny that it was called that really. Aaron had never been in a house that felt less like a home in his life, and he’d bounced in and out of some real shit holes. Home Farm was a beautiful house, but in that detached way that a museum could be a beautiful building. Tall columns, sweeping staircase, not a speck of dust to be seen. Nothing undecorated but everything austere. Aaron couldn’t stick living in a place like this, it was like what he imagined rattling around inside his own skull would be like. Give him one of Lisa’s knitted blankets covered in dog hair or the mismatched photo frames that populated the pub’s back room any day.

There was only one thing at Home Farm that Aaron thought might make it bearable to live in and he was looking at it.

“Have I got chocolate on my face?”

Aaron blinked, shook his head slowly. “You’re good.”

“Just checking me out then?”

“Sommat like that.” Robert looked surprised that Aaron would admit it. But he was feeling soft and open, relaxed. Getting to be with Robert like this, like what they had was as real and special as it felt to him at the best of times, as real and special as the ring Chrissie got to wear everyday – even if it was getting more and more tarnished by the day with Robert dallying around behind her back. He glanced down along the length of his legs, heels kicked up on a coffee table probably worth more than Aaron could even hazard a guess at. Robert’s legs were lined up alongside, the both of them sitting close and with their feet crossed at the ankles.

Keen to get out from under his Mum’s eagle eye, Aaron had rushed in packing his overnight bag and forgot his socks.

“You’d have been better off forgetting your underwear,” Robert had laughed, tossing him a pair of his socks to wear. And now their feet rested side by side and matching.

“I’m really glad…that we’re doing this,” Robert ventured. “Having you here, I mean. It’s – it’s the best week I’ve spent in this house since I’ve been here.”

Aaron felt a flutter in his chest, something like possibility, like love in bloom. It was terrifying and sweet - the only way to get to the honey of moments like this was to put a bare and vulnerable hand into the beehive. Aaron would get stung again, he knew. He wasn’t stupid. Just in love.

He leaned in for a kiss, Robert meeting him, mouth soft.

Aaron wiggled his toes.

**BOYFRIENDS ERA: TIE**

“Fuck,” Robert breathed, “fuck, Aaron.”

Aaron felt incredible. Thighs burning under Robert’s hands, Robert’s eyes fixed on him as Aaron worked him, rolling his hips and sinking back on Robert’s cock again and again.

“God, Aaron, you look so good like this,” Robert said, skimming his hands up Aaron’s sides as he moved, then back down to the taut muscles of his thighs. Skin to skin, not a stitch between them.

Except for the slip of silk on Aaron’s chest, Robert’s tie looped around his neck. As Aaron rode his boyfriend the motion brought the tip of the tie to meet the tip of his cock in a satin kiss. The fabric was starting to get damp with his precum, and it wouldn’t be long until game over. Robert seemed to agree, reaching up to wrap his hand around the tie and tug Aaron down.

“Love how you ride me,” Robert whispered into his mouth, open kisses and the hot slide of their tongues drawing moans out of Aaron, the pressure Robert’s hold on the tie was putting on his neck a gentle reminder of what was there. Aaron had been embarrassed at first when Robert asked him to wear it, but that didn’t last long, not when Robert fingered him open and aching, spoke dirty and loving along the line of Aaron’s jaw. Looked at him like Aaron was a chasm he was dying to fall into.

“Yeah?” Aaron didn’t have much else to offer, verbally, especially when Robert started to stroke him off in time to Aaron’s riding, Aaron thrusting forward into Robert’s fist and back onto his cock, speeding up, chasing pleasure. “Robert – “

“Use me,” Robert said, reading the signals of Aaron’s body. “Use my cock to get yourself off, Aaron, do it. You feel so good.”

Aaron moaned, a few more strokes of Robert inside pushing him over the edge, coming over his boyfriend’s stomach. Aaron held himself up with his fists on either side of Robert’s head, and Robert planted his feet on the bed, pumping his hips up as Aaron kissed at his mouth sloppily, fuck-drunk and ready for it.

“Aaron – “

“Your turn, Rob.” Robert’s hands wound around him like vines, one tight around his middle and the other sliding up into the hair at Aaron’s nape as he hammered up into him once, twice –

Aaron bit down on Robert’s lip as he felt him come, and after a moment of hovering, strung out, collapsed against him.

It was a long time before either of them moved, Robert just carding his hand through Aaron’s sweaty hair, Aaron catching his breath, feeling all the muscles where he’d be paying for it tomorrow. When he finally sat up and looked at the mess they’d made, he had to laugh.

Robert reached up, fond, blissed out smile on his face and stroked his thumb on Aaron’s rounded cheek.

“What?”

Aaron glanced down himself. “Safe to say you won’t be wearing this tie again.”

“No,” Robert scoffed in agreement, then got that glint in his eye that Aaron couldn’t help but see as nine tenths of foreplay these days. “But you will.”

“Oh you think so, d’you.”

Robert nodded, curling his long, skilled fingers around the ruined fabric.

Pulling.

**FIANCÉS ERA: UNDERWEAR**

“Take your trousers off,” Robert demanded.

Aaron rolled his eyes, turning off the tv.

“And they say romance is dead.”

“Aaron.”

“Robert.”

“You’ve been stealing my underwear again!”

Liv walked in the room, tapping something out on her phone, but on hearing Robert, turned on her heel and walked straight back out again, not even looking up. Aaron stared after her, raising her eyebrows at Robert, who didn’t look nearly embarrassed enough.

“Well you just traumatised my sister,” Aaron said, crossing his arms, “so I reckon we’re even.”

“So you admit it!” Robert pointed at him, a note of victory in his voice.

“I won’t be sayin’ nothin’ till my solicitor gets here,” Aaron said lightly, crossing by Robert to get to the kitchen. “Brew?”

“No I don’t want a brew, I want you to stop – “

“I’m only practising,” Aaron said, setting up two mugs regardless and smiling when Robert crowded up into his space, bracketing him against the counter. He narrowed his eyes at Aaron and Aaron lifted his left hand between them, wriggling his ring finger so the band winked in the low kitchen light. “Married life, in’t it.”

Robert softened, the penny dropping. “What’s mine is yours…”

“…and what’s yours is mine – exactly.” He grinned up at Robert.

“I don’t raid your underwear though,” Robert shuffled closer.

“You do though,” Aaron tilted a sly smile to Robert’s. “In your own way.”

**HUSBANDS ERA: BLAZER**

“Well I wasn’t expecting this but – “

“Just shut up and help me pick one,” Aaron huffed, irate. He held up two coat hangers with Robert’s blazers on them, one blue and one sort of grey but also kind of blue and honestly they should probably talk about how they’re in separate and devoted monogamous relationships with a colour each.

“I may need to voice an opinion to do that,” Robert said, perching on their bed and looking speculatively at Aaron. “What’s wrong with your clothes?”

“Really. _You’re _asking me that. You’re top of the leaderboard for telling me in detail what’s wrong with my clothes.” Robert waited patiently and Aaron felt himself unwind under the steady gaze. As scary as it had been, the process of becoming known by another person, sometimes it was really so worth it, just for that calm understanding. The way tension evaporated when the other person just knew without asking that it was there. “My suit jacket has a rip in it – don’t ask, I have no idea, and my nicer jacket has a stain I hadn’t noticed. I’m not a scally anymore, I can’t show up to a meeting like this with a stain on my clothes, it’ll be hard enough as it is.”

“What makes you say that?”

Aaron looked down helplessly at the two blazers in his hands. He couldn’t do this.

“This guy, this contact – he’s a proper poshboy, doesn’t do any scrapping himself, but he runs a massive outfit. Wants to contract some stuff out to somewhere smaller. I have to impress him, but – I can’t do this, Robert, he’s gonna take one look at me and think I’m taking the mick.”

“Hey – “ Robert patted beside him on the bed and Aaron sat down, the blazers drooping sadly. “You are a brilliant business man. You built that place up, and you’ve kept it going through all sorts. Adam leaving, Gerry, all the family dramas and personal stuff. The scrapyard has been around for as long as we have, and that’s down to you. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“So you don’t have any pro tips then?”

“Maybe avoid calling him a _proper poshboy._”

“Shit. There goes my ice breaker.” Aaron cracked a smile. It was hard not to feel buoyed by the unflinching support of someone who knew what they were doing.

“Go with the grey,” Robert said, nodding to the blazer. “And knock him dead.”

Aaron stood and crossed to the full length mirror, slipping into his Robert-armour. He caught Robert’s eye in the reflection.

“I love you,” Robert said, before Aaron could beat him to it. Not that he minded second place.

“I love you too.”

**+1. HUSBANDS ERA: OVERALLS**

Aaron was going through the list in his head, cataloguing all the things they needed. He didn’t want them to have to stop once they got started because they were in a flap over missing painter’s tape or roller heads. He was laying out newspaper on the floor when he heard Robert’s footsteps in the hall, and looked up as his husband walked into the room. His eyes half bugged out of his head.

“What are you wearing?”

“Eh, thought you’d recognise them, being that they’re yours.”

“I know they’re mine, I’m not thick.” Aaron’s eye followed the long line of his husband from feet to the top of his head, caressing every inch of his body kitted out in Aaron’s old blue garage overalls. “Where’d you find them?”

“Back of the wardrobe, screwed up in a ball, probably still unwashed knowing you.”

“Oi.”

“Tell me what part of that sentence was wrong.”

Aaron brushed past the comment, found himself lost in looking at his husband again. The breadth of his shoulders, the long line of his legs. And blue of course, still fitting the Robert Sugden colour scheme of choice.

“What’s the big deal, thought they’d be handy to keep my clothes clean,” Robert gestured to all the painting supplies. He decided he wasn’t happy with the shade of their bedroom walls, and Aaron had learned not to argue about the interior design of the Mill. Plus, Robert had a tendency to get hot and bothered when Aaron spent the day lifting heavy things in close proximity to him so, everyone was a winner in the end.

“What about my clothes?”

Robert raised an eyebrow. “What if you get paint on your black tshirt? I don’t know, you could always replace it with one of your fifty other black tshirts.”

“Ponce.”

“Your mouth says _ponce _but your eyes say _fit_.”

“What does my hand say?” Aaron said, flipping him off. Robert laughed, loud and unrepentant, and Aaron grumbled about them getting to work.

They taped up the skirtings and the parts Robert called the _cornices _and Aaron called _them top bits_, then started in on the work. Robert had a steadier hand and an eye for final details, so he rounded the room painting straight line edges while Aaron went in, blocky and solid with the roller. He finished up one wall and turned to check on Robert’s progress.

Robert was crouched in the corner, looking delectable, if strange in Aaron’s overalls. Robert was business casual as a rule, and even though he’d done his share of farm work and garage dwelling, that wasn’t a version of him Aaron was used to seeing. As much as he went on about Robert’s floral shirts and fancy bathroom bits, it was who he was. In the same way Aaron was sure that Robert looked at him sometimes and wondered how he ended up with a scruff who was familiar with rainbows in the gay sense but in no other, sticking to his 51 black tshirts. It was part of what made them work, their differences. They were the notches and grooves that made it possible for them to just _click _slot together. Aaron would sooner go shopping with Bernice than say it aloud, but they were made for each other, in ways that only the other would ever understand.

But he could always improve the situation.

Aaron rollered over his hand in a layer of paint, a giddy lift in his chest like he was being paid back for the lighthearted teenage flutters he missed out on. He crossed the room on creeping feet, waited for Robert to stand up. When he did, Aaron turned him by the elbow, leaned up into a kiss that Robert took to like it was as natural as taking his next breath. Aaron dipped his tongue into Robert’s mouth, felt the heat there, the hot ember glow. Robert’s hands came up to Aaron’s neck, holding him like he always did, in loud or quiet variations but always with a passion that Aaron never thought he’d get to have in his life, let alone for this many years. He held Robert close, copped a feel of his bum because it was his husbandly prerogative – nay, duty – and pulled away smiling.

“What was that for?” Robert asked.

“I need a reason now do I?”

“Not at all,” Robert said. They had fallen into a sway, Robert’s smile back a tilting line Aaron would happily fall off the edge of.

“Back to work then,” Aaron said, extricating himself from Robert’s arms. “Slacker.”

“Knew you liked the overalls on me,” Robert smirked, smug as he turned back to his edgework, leaning down to help with his precision.

“Sprung,” Aaron said, eyeing his handprint in the duck egg blue Robert had picked out. “Guess they’re growin’ on me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I went into this thinking I was going to write fluff. Clownshoes. Of course it had to be sex. Of course.


End file.
